


The Fox Cub

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Onmyouji | The Yin-Yang Master (Movies)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-26
Updated: 2010-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiromasa discovers a fox cub in his garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fox Cub

**Author's Note:**

> Standalone written for the smallfandomfest prompt ‘cub’.

Hiromasa found the fox cub curled by the side of the stream that ran through the garden of his estate. It was the sixth month; hot enough that the crickets had started to crawl into the walls of his house in search of darkness, hot enough that in the palace the ladies stripped down to gauzy shifts that revealed their bodies when they walked, but not yet hot enough for the courtiers to remove to their summer houses on Lake Biwa.

It was hot enough to distress the fox cub, though. Hiromasa crouched beside the animal, his shadow cast across fur of russet and black and white. The heat of the sun burned his back through a double layer of unlined glossed silk robes. How much hotter the young fox must feel, with its thick coat! Hiromasa watched the rapid rise and fall of the cub’s breathing. Its eyes were closed and its body limp with exhaustion. It didn’t even stir when he shuffled closer.

Hiromasa reached out a hand to touch it. At that moment, the head gardener appeared, carrying a sack. He stopped, his face reflecting confusion and worry, then he remembered to bow. “My lord,” the gardener said, “please allow me to deal with this animal.”

“It’s sick. It needs help.” Hiromasa remained beside the fox, careful to keep his shadow over it.

“But it’s a fox, lord!” The gardener drew nearer, gesturing with the sack. “Foxes don’t belong in gardens. They belong in the woods. A fox coming into the garden—people will talk, my lord, begging your pardon but they will.”

“And what will they say?” Hiromasa stroked the fox cub. Its fur blazed with heat, as if its body ran with flames. “You poor creature,” he murmured. “I should take you somewhere cool and shady.”

The cub looked up at that, its eyes glinting green, but it was too weak to do anything more than wrinkle its muzzle and bare its teeth. Such a display only made Hiromasa’s heart soften further, and he picked up the fox and cradled it in the crook of his arm.

“You shouldn’t touch it, lord!” the gardener cried, wringing the sack through his hands. “We should put it out onto the street. Its mother might come back and reclaim it. Only let me take it away for you, my lord, and I’ll be sure to make an offering to Inari for its health.”

Hiromasa smiled down at the cub. “If I see another fox in the garden, of course I’ll set this little one free. But until then, I will care for it myself.”

The gardener made a choking sound. “There might be more of them somewhere—a whole family, maybe, burrowing under the house! With your permission, my lord, I’ll arrange a search right away.”

“Very well, do as you please.” Hiromasa rose to his feet with care and cuddled the baby fox. It lifted its head, pushed its nose into the folds of his sleeves, and huffed a deep sigh. It sounded contented, but perhaps it was just tired. Tenderly, Hiromasa carried the cub into the house, seeking out the quietest of the shade-drenched rooms. His study seemed ideal, scented with the gentle fragrance of roses, and he laid the animal on the cushioning softness of an old winter court cloak the colour of unripe blackberries.

The fox slept. Hiromasa watched it, unsure what to do next. What if its mother returned, as the gardener suggested? Did it have siblings? He had a vague idea that foxes were sociable animals. Surely one of its kin would miss the cub and come looking for it. Maybe he shouldn’t have moved it. Maybe he should put the fox back where he’d found it. The uncertainties multiplied, forcing out the pleasure at his good act, and guilt pricked him. His mood tumbled until a single idea brightened his thoughts. He would ask Seimei’s advice. Seimei knew everything.

Leaving the cub for a moment, Hiromasa went to his desk and prepared ink and a brush. He spent some time on choosing the most appropriate paper for his letter, then wavered over including a poem. Knowing Seimei’s preference for brevity and concision in all matters of correspondence, Hiromasa wrote a few lines explaining his predicament and asking for help. Folding the letter, he summoned a pageboy and instructed him to deliver the message to Seimei’s estate.

Hiromasa settled down to wait. He admired the sleeping fox cub and had drunk half a jar of wine by the time the boy returned, empty-handed.

“He sent no reply?” Hiromasa asked in surprise.

“My lord.” The pageboy bowed low. “I was told by a lady of the household that Lord Seimei had been called away to Takahama on business. The lady said she will forward your message on to him as soon as may be possible.”

“Oh.” Hiromasa struggled to hide his disappointment. “Well. Thank you.”

The boy left. Hiromasa paced up and down, his uncertainties crowding back. A fox was not a pet but a wild animal. Surely it was foolish to attempt to keep a wild animal in the house. Muttering beneath his breath, he had almost convinced himself that the best thing would be to place the cub back in the garden when the fox woke and uttered a heart-piercing sound.

Hiromasa ran to the cloak-cushion and dropped to his knees. He added his own call to the cry of the fox, and soon servants hurried to bring a bowl of water and dishes of rice and flaked fish. Hiromasa fed the cub with small handfuls of food, offering the water bowl at intervals. The fox ate with surprising delicacy, not snatching at the morsels but taking the food piece by piece, wet nose pressed into Hiromasa’s cupped palm. At length it crawled off its cushion to prop its head on his knee, its eyes slumberous and its ears twitched back, and Hiromasa was charmed.

Behind him came a soft noise, and he turned to see a sheet of plain white Michinokuni paper smoothing itself out over his writing desk. Ushering the satiated fox cub back onto its cushion, he approached the desk in time to see Seimei’s distinctive running script appear on the paper.

 _Mitsumushi sent me your note,_ Hiromasa read with growing wonder. _Really, Hiromasa, why would you think that I would know the best way to rear a fox cub? (An answer is unnecessary—the question was rhetorical). If the animal is uninjured, leave it outside for its mother to claim or for nature to take its course._

“Seimei, that’s cruel,” Hiromasa muttered.

 _You will no doubt say I’m cruel_ —Hiromasa smiled— _but consider your reputation should it become known that you had adopted a fox cub. Your peers already believe you moon-touched because of your continued association with me, but since you are the epitome of a very good man, no one will take you to task for our relationship. Raising a fox cub in your home, however, will make you the object of mockery, and I would prefer for that not to happen._

 _Set the cub outside where you found it. Your capacity for generosity is great, but I fear it is wasted upon an animal._

 _If you need to correspond with me again, you may write your reply on the reverse of this paper, and I will receive it directly.  
—Seimei_

Hiromasa considered, turning the paper over to stare at the blank side. As he pondered what to do, the fox cub rose from the cushion and skittered over to him. It wobbled, a bit unsteady on its legs, its green eyes widening as its paws slipped on the polished wooden floor. Hiromasa chuckled in amused sympathy as the cub tipped sideways. Abandoning the letter, he tickled the fox. It rolled over like a cat or dog and showed the white flash of its furry belly. Hiromasa stroked it, still smiling, letting it stretch and flaunt under his hand. For the first time he noticed the cub’s gender.

“Hmm, you’re a boy fox.” Hiromasa flicked a look at Seimei’s letter, suspicion stirring in his mind. Was it possible that...? But no. Surely not. Just the idea of the possibility made a blush rise to Hiromasa’s cheeks.

Confused now, he picked up the fox cub, took it back to its cushion, and stroked its pointed ears until it fell asleep.

* * *

A directional taboo prevented Hiromasa from leaving the house for the next few days. Usually in such a situation, he would invite friends to drink with him to while away the boredom of enforced inactivity, but he found this time that he didn’t wish for company. The only man he wanted with him was in another province—or so Seimei had claimed—and so Hiromasa spent his days with the fox cub.

As the hours passed, the cub grew stronger until it seemed fully recovered from whatever malaise had led to its collapse in the garden. Hiromasa fed it the choicest titbits from his table, and in return the fox permitted him to brush its coat until the black streaks marking its immaturity moulted and its fur shone a rich, glossy red.

They played together, the cub scampering after the train of Hiromasa’s hunting costume or tangling in the trailing hem of his summer cloak, until Hiromasa asked one of the maids to make a ball of scrap cloth. Going out into the garden, he rolled the ball and watched the cub chase after it, and then they graduated to kicking the ball around as if playing _kemari_. Hiromasa couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed such innocent fun.

Occasionally he glanced towards the desk in his study, where the letter from Seimei still awaited a reply. He always looked away, back at the romping cub, unable fully to shake off the suspicion that somehow, the fox was Seimei. Hiromasa wasn’t sure how such a thing was possible, or what Seimei stood to gain from it, but reasoned it was one of Seimei’s silly games. Seimei liked to trick him with shikigami, after all, so why not trick him by becoming a fox cub?

With this in mind, Hiromasa decided he would play along with Seimei’s game. Besides, he was delighting in the excuse to be childish for once and to indulge his sense of fun. It made up for the dreariness of his childhood, when joy had been limited by his strict upbringing and moments of playfulness were treasured memories.

Following a particularly boisterous game of ball, Hiromasa retired to the shade of the study to rest. After a few cups of chilled wine, lethargy gradually crept over him. He stretched out, pillowed on the cloak-cushion with the fox cub snuggled on his chest, its head tucked under his chin. The animal smelled of musk and sunshine, the scent a pleasurable combination. Hiromasa smiled, one hand resting on the warm russet coat to feel the steady thump of the fox’s heart. Content, he drifted off to sleep.

He woke with a start when something crashed to the floor. Hiromasa sat bolt upright and stared at the roses strewn around him and the growing puddle of water that spread from the shattered remains of a Chinese vase. With mounting dismay he looked around the room and beheld utter devastation. The lacquered legs of his desk bore the marks of repeated gnawing. His correspondence was scattered, some of it lying wet and illegible in the spilled water. Deep scratches had been gouged into the cherry-wood boxes containing his writing implements. The lower half of a standing curtain had been torn down; the bamboo blinds had been rattled into disarray; and in the centre of the room lay a pile of dark, pungent droppings.

Hiromasa jumped up, horrified. He hurled a curse at the fox cub, which stood beneath the disordered blinds with an air of defiance. Furious, he made a grab for it. The cub bit him—sharp, unexpected. Hiromasa exclaimed in pain and shock and dropped the animal.

The fox shot out of the room into the garden.

Nursing his injured hand, Hiromasa went out onto the veranda, but could see neither hide nor hair of the cub. His anger ebbed, leaving only a dull sense of disappointment. Turning back to the room, he surveyed the turmoil and considered calling for a servant to tidy up. But no—he had caused this chaos by inviting an animal into his home, so surely he should humble himself to clean up the fox cub’s mess.

With a sigh, Hiromasa rescued what he could of his correspondence, putting the wet letters flat on the veranda to dry and stacking the others into a neat pile. Seimei’s letter had somehow managed to remain untouched upon the desk. Craving sympathy, Hiromasa took brush and ink and wrote a single line: _The fox cub bit me!_

Almost immediately the reply formed on the other side of the paper: _Foxes bite. You already knew that._

He could almost hear Seimei’s delicate amusement, and Hiromasa blushed. Picking up the brush again, he wrote: _It’s a very naughty creature. Ungrateful, too. I fed it and played with it and let it sleep by my side, and now it repays my kindness by causing havoc. I feel most aggrieved, Seimei._

A pause, and then the reply came: _Aggrieved, are you? My dear Hiromasa, you cannot expect to tame a wild thing with a few gestures of kindness._

Hiromasa hesitated over his next message. _The method has worked before._ As soon as he’d formed the characters, he fretted over them—had he been too direct? He waited, holding his breath.

This reply took longer to come: _Oh, Hiromasa—some things were not entirely wild when you tamed them._

“Oh, Seimei.” Despite the mess around him, Hiromasa grinned. “Yes, you were.”

* * *

The directional taboo lifted the following morning, and Hiromasa’s life returned to normal. He rose during the third watch of the hour of the Dragon, ate his morning rice, and dressed in his court clothes. The house felt empty without the fox cub, which hadn’t returned since its flight into the garden. Hiromasa reached up to adjust his lacquered tail cap and noticed the bite-mark on his hand had almost faded. It had only been a cub, after all, and though its teeth had been sharp, there’d been no power behind the bite. He sighed. After he’d completed his palace duties, perhaps he’d go to the Inari shrine and make an offering on behalf of all the lost fox cubs in the capital.

A manservant came to tell him the ox-cart was ready. Hiromasa walked along the galleries and prepared to climb inside the carriage when a flash of russet caught his attention. Steadying himself against the cart, Hiromasa stared down at the fox cub crouched in a cluster of white anemones. Surprise gave way to pleasure. “I’m sorry I scared you yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be so angry.”

The cub put its head between its forepaws and lay flat, a position of such abject apology that Hiromasa laughed. “It’s quite all right. I forgive you, as long as you forgive me, too. It was wrong of me to try to make you into a pet. I don’t regret it, but all the same, I shouldn’t have tried it.”

The cub sat up and yipped.

“You should go now.” Hiromasa stepped up inside the ox-cart and leaned out of the back to look past his startled manservant at the fox cub. “Rejoin your family.”

Another yip, and then the cub turned and dashed away.

Hiromasa made the journey across the city in a much lighter frame of mind. He alighted from the carriage near Suzaku Gate and strolled towards the palace, enjoying the warmth of the day and the hint of a freshening wind through the willows. The guards on duty saluted, but their gazes went past him. Curious as to what held their attention, Hiromasa turned and beheld the fox cub trotting in his wake.

When the cub saw that he’d halted, it gave a happy cry and ran towards him. The guards looked at each other then moved to intercept the fox, but in their surprise they became clumsy, their spears tangling, their feet tripping. A shower of black-feathered arrows cascaded from their quivers, and in the chaos, the fox cub darted past them and sauntered up to Hiromasa.

Deciding it would be a good time to remove himself from the gate, Hiromasa gathered his silks and hurried towards the Council Chambers. The cub kept close to his heels, seeming to take this as a new game. Aware of courtiers and servants in the vicinity, Hiromasa paused and hissed at the cub to go home. It stood and gazed at him with big green eyes, but didn’t move.

Hiromasa began walking again. His formal silks rustled with each agitated step, and soon he realised his turn of speed was unbecoming for a man of his rank. Quite aside from that, he was too hot from the exertion and conscious of appearing before the Counsellors looking dishevelled. He turned again to plead with the fox cub, and realised with dismay that their antics had attracted a large audience.

Ladies, gentlemen, and servants of all ranks stared at him and the cub, commenting behind their hands and whispering behind their fans. Perhaps thinking that all these people might want to play, the fox scampered towards them. A lady shrieked when the cub went too close to her trailing robes. Someone pitched a small stone at it, but the fox jumped out of the way. Scuttling back to Hiromasa, it turned and regarded its audience with a haughty look.

Embarrassment threatened to devour Hiromasa. He recalled Seimei’s warning about protecting his reputation, but it was too late for that now. The best he could do was to remove the fox from the palace before anyone of higher rank witnessed this transgression. Crouching before the fox cub, Hiromasa pitched his voice low and asked, “What do you want? Something to eat? Something to drink?”

The cub cocked its head and yipped. It grabbed Hiromasa’s sleeve between its teeth and tugged, then let go and rolled on the ground. Clearly it wanted to play, and Hiromasa’s heart sank as he thought of his duties. “I can’t,” he said, sweeping his sleeve out of the cub’s reach. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not now. Maybe later.”

At that moment, Grand Counsellor Sukenari strolled towards them. “Good day, Lord Hiromasa,” he said with a broad smile, and then, as his glance slid to the fox cub, he added, “Lord Seimei. How nice to see you at court.”

Gales of laughter broke from the watching nobles.

Hiromasa burned with humiliation. He scooped up the fox and walked away, his spine stiff and his cheeks aflame. The cub seemed to sense his discomfort and sat quiet in his arms until they reached the Taiken Gate, and there it wriggled out of his grasp and fled from the palace. Hiromasa called after it, but the cub didn’t stop, didn’t look back.

He stood by the gate for a long time, even after the cub had disappeared from sight, then with a heavy sigh, Hiromasa trudged back to court.

* * *

Two days later, Seimei returned to the capital and came to call on Hiromasa at his palace apartments. The scandal of the fox cub hadn’t entirely died down and was still laughed at in some of the side-palaces, but already a fresh round of gossip was brewing, much to Hiromasa’s relief. He’d been quite out of sorts since he’d resumed his court duties and welcomed Seimei’s visit with happy relief.

“The fox cub has run away,” Hiromasa said, watching as Seimei chose a spot close to the veranda and adjusted the height of the reed blinds. “When it ran away from the palace, it didn’t go back to my house. I’ve had the servants search the estate, but it’s not there. It must have run away to the woods.”

“Good.” Seimei sat and unwrapped the wine-jar he’d brought as a gift, then poured the wine into their cups.

Mournful, Hiromasa said, “I enjoyed its company.”

“It was an animal.” Seimei passed a full cup over to Hiromasa. “Do not expect too much from an animal.”

Hiromasa took the cup, his fingers brushing Seimei’s for a heartbeat. They drank, and Hiromasa was the first to set aside his wine. “Actually,” he said, smiling as he admitted it, “for a while I thought the fox cub was you.”

“Me?” Seimei put down his cup, looking politely outraged.

“Obviously I was wrong...”

“Obviously.” Seimei shook out his sleeves. “Let me tell you, Hiromasa, that if I wished to play a trick on you—if I wished to make you believe that I had taken the form of a fox cub in order to inveigle my way into your affections—”

“Which would be a pointless exercise,” Hiromasa said.

“If,” Seimei raised his voice, ignoring the interruption, “ _if_ I had chosen to play such an underhand and devious trick on you, my dearest Hiromasa, I would certainly not have turned myself into a red fox.”

Hiromasa let that pass for a moment, then tilted his head and asked in the most nonchalant tone he could muster, “Just out of interest... what would you have turned yourself into?”

Seimei lifted his cup to hide his smile. “Why, a white fox, of course.”


End file.
